Here’s the version of the orbital data center story you keep reading: Elon Musk says space will be the cheapest place to run AI within 36 months. LoneStar announces plans for a lunar data center. NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin Space-1 makes headlines. These are real announcements, and they all have one thing in common. Nobody talks about the source of electricity. While Musk frequently discusses the necessity of sustainable energy, current industry discourse remains disproportionately focused on AI capabilities rather than the massive power sources required to run them. To capitalize on this shift, investors need to update their strategy to prioritize the energy stack in addition to the compute stack.

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Oleg Demidov is a general partner at Beyond Earth Ventures, a U.S. deep tech fund investing at the intersection of space, energy and frontier technology.